The heat dissipating device which is usually known as the heat sink is commonly used to cool semiconductor chips. However, in usual constructions, such heatsinks have a hard base portion which produces a difficult to cover situation when there are multiple chips, multiple shapes and multiple mountings that in turn may be on a common carrier which may have a variation of spacing, heights and planarity.
There is, therefore, a need to have a heat dissipating interface device that is easy to manufacture while providing a compliant interface between the heat generating device and the transfer to the ambient dissipation device or heat sink. The having of a compliant interface takes on greater importance when the heat dissipation device is shared by several semiconductor devices on a common carrier such as a printed-wiring board.
The advantages of this invention are to provide a low thermal resistance between the heat generating devices and the common heat dissipating device or heat sink through the compliant interface and as the art progresses, it would be of advantage for any heat dissipating device to be modular with it's cooling capacity extendable by stacking and spreading.
There has been some progress in the art. In the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin publication, Vol. 34, No. 4A, September 1991, titled “Stacked, Thin Film Heat Sink”, describes a method of making a heat sink using thin plates stacked together. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,104,609, titled “Structure Computer Central Processing Unit Heat dissipater”, there is described a heat dissipater comprising of a fan, an upper cover, a heat sink assembly, and a lower cover, wherein the heat sink assembly is composed of numerous metal heat sink elements that are interlock-assembled together front to back in a flush arrangement.